Philadelphia

Civil War Exhibit to Open at National Constitution Center

The exhibit features over 100 artifacts, including original copies of those amendments.

The National Constitution Center in Philadelphia is unveiling the nation's first permanent exhibit exploring the constitutional debates of the Civil War.

"Civil War and Reconstruction: The Battle for Freedom and Equality" opens to the public on Thursday.

The exhibit is "devoted to exploring how constitutional clashes over slavery set the stage for the Civil War, and how the nation transformed the Constitution after the war to more fully embrace the Declaration of Independence's promise of liberty and equality," the museum said.

The museum says visitors will "learn how the equality promised in the Declaration of Independence was finally inscribed in the Constitution by the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments."

The exhibit features over 100 artifacts, including original copies of those amendments. It also features Dred Scott's signed petition for freedom, a pike bought by John Brown for an armed raid to free slaves, a fragment of the flag that Abraham Lincoln raised at Independence Hall, and a ballot box marked "colored" from Virginia's first statewide election that allowed black men to vote in 1867.

Copyright AP - Associated Press
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